Patna: The Bharatiya Janata Party took a dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday and questioned his moral authority to continue in office after driving the state back into the days of ‘Lalu Raj.’

BJP national president Rajnath Singh, speaking at a function in Patna said, “An anarchy-like situation has been created within a month of JD-U's split with BJP, it appears that 'Lalu Raj' has returned in Bihar.”

Singh's reference was to the pejorative term - 'jungle raj', which was used by Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's political rivals in order to run down his party's 15-year rule in Bihar between 1990 and 2005.

"A government functions on moral power and not on brute police strength," he said and slammed the incident of alleged police firing in Bagaha last month, which claimed the lives of six Tharu tribals while injuring several others.

The CM has no moral right to stay in power after the incident of police firing on peaceful tribal people, the BJP president said.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha - Arun Jaitley, who was present on the occasion, too, expressed disappointment at JD-U’s decision to snap ties with NDA and asked BJP workers to strive hard to ensure the party wins power on its own in the next Assembly polls in Bihar.